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Bay Area theatre reviews with KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky,.Older posts include theatre interviews recorded pre-pandemic. LINK TO ASSORTED LOCAL THEATER & BOOK VENUES

  1. Aug 18

    Review: “R.O.I. (Return on Investment)” at San Francisco Playhouse Creativity Theatre

    KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “R.O.I. (Return on Investment) by Aaron Loeb, directed by Jonathan Moscone, a San Francisco Playhouse production at Creativity Theatre.       TEXT OF REVIEW: Back just a few short years ago, despite the warning dystopias of Skynet in the Terminator films and HAL in 2001, most believed technology had the power to turn this planet into a utopia. That was especially true since the tech titans seemed so idealistic. Elon Musk and his electric cars, Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post, the optimism of Steve Jobs. But times have changed. How does the horror of monopoly capitalism engage with the sunniness of a brighter tomorrow? These are heavy questions, which are subsumed inside the interpersonal power struggles that make up the bulk of the funny and profound World Premiere play, ROI, Return on Investment by Aaron Loeb, directed by Jonathan Moscone, now a San Francisco Playhouse production at the Creativity Theatre through September 5th. The Montrose Fund links investors with technology projects, and May Lee, the protege of the Fund’s founder, Paul Montrose, thinks she’s found her golden goose. It’s a young biotech genius named Willa McGovern, who explains she’s found the way to map individual genetic signs that point directly to cancer and alzheimers, and to then engineer genetic changes to cure both maladies. And Willa is the real deal. Over the course of the play we follow the three over a period of months and years as they weave their own scenarios and objectives, sometimes in tandem but often putting their individual priorities first. Which creates the kind of conflict that makes for thrilling theatre. Anthony Fusco has a field day as the gadget and toy happy Paul, Sharon Shao gives her all as the idealistic and snarky May, and Lauren English plays it both ways as the enigmatic Willa, the three-person chemistry sparking laughs and sometimes shocks as they play off each other. Also mention should be made of the excellent set design, lighting and sound.

Issues involving ethics, late stage capitalism, the power of the internet, the joy and horror of technology, its toys and surveillance mechanisms all rise inside the show, usually yielding more questions than answers. There’s always subtext behind the laughs. R.O.I. turns sober in its last scenes, a common trait of comedies these days, and it’s possible to argue with the resolution. But it’s the best new comedy to emerge from the Bay Area since the pandemic, and well worth seeing. R.O.I., Return On Investment by Aaron Loeb, directed by Jonathan Moscone, a San Francisco Playhouse production, plays at the Creativity Theatre through September 5th. For more information, go to sfplayhouse.org. I’m Richard Wolinsky on Bay Area theatre for KPFA. The post Review: “R.O.I. (Return on Investment)” at San Francisco Playhouse Creativity Theatre appeared first on KPFA.

  2. Aug 12

    Review: “Orpheus Descending” at Oakland Theatre Project

    KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Orpheus Descending” by Tennessee Williams, at Oakland Theatre Project through August 23, 2026.         Text of Review: Over the course of his career, Tennessee Williams wrote thirty full length plays and a host of one-acts. Yet looking at the list of plays produced by local and regional theaters, you’d think he only wrote The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire. While it’s true there was a fall off in quality after 1965, and some of the early works were sketchy, there’s still quite a roster of plays that hardly ever get revived outside of New York. So it’s a kind of gift that Orpheus Descending is now playing at Oakland Theatre Project through August 23rd. 

The play has a curious and confusing history. A rewrite of one of Williams’ early plays, Battle of Angels, Orpheus Descending opened on Broadway in 1957 in the midst of Williams’ most creative period. It received mixed to negative reviews, and closed quickly, later becoming a Brando film titled The Fugitive Kind, which had no relationship to a same-titled early Williams play, and was later revived on Broadway in 1989 with Vanessa Redgrave, which was filmed but isn’t available streaming. Orpheus Descending opens in a dry goods store in a small white town in the South in the 1950s when Val, a drifter whose car has broken down, comes into the emporium and throws everyone in the town into turmoil, particularly Lady, wife of the store’s ill-tempered invalid owner. A romance, doomed of course, ensues. We do have to wait to meet them after a long expository duet from two lesser characters that Williams should have cut seventy years ago. 

O rpheus Descending is, as one critic noted for a recent revival, pure over the top Southern Gothic, verging on fantasy and brain rattling hysteria. It’s both Williams at his best, and at his most histrionic. This production, directed by Will Detlefsen, shows the play at its best through some of the actors, particularly Natalie Pasquinelli as Carol and Lisa Ramirez in the role of Lady. But we never understand Val’s attraction to Lady and the play suffers from the theatre’s configuration, forcing actors to shout from across the horizontal space, turning the play often into a one-note yelling spree. And some directorial choices that sounded good in theory just don’t work. But in a world of half-baked world premieres and undeserved Pulitzers, any Tennessee Williams is a treat, and when this production works, and it does work here and there, and when Williams is on a roll, it’s theatre as its meant to be seen. Orpheus Descending plays at Oakland Theatre Project through August 23rd. For more information go to oakland theatreproject. org. I’m Richard Wolinsky on Bay Area Theatre for KPFA. The post Review: “Orpheus Descending” at Oakland Theatre Project appeared first on KPFA.

  3. Jul 24

    Review: “Hairspray” at San Francisco Playhouse

    KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews the musical “Hairspray” directed by Bill English, at San Francisco Playhouse through September 12, 2026.           Text of Review: The Golden Age of the Broadway musical faded in the sixties, the age of Sondheim and the pop opera died before the new century, and since then, the Great White Way has atrophied into a world of corporate jukeboxes, pointless renderings of hit movies, little shows that could, and hits that never close. And then there’s 2003’s Hairspray, now in a fine production at San Francisco Playhouse through September 12th. It’s not as if the show vanished; it pops up frequently in community theaters these days, filling in the gaps between the spelling bee Audrey II, Hedwig and a host of Sondheims. But without a Broadway revival, Hairspray never inserted itself into the canon. And it should, particularly now. John Waters’ most mainstream film from 1988 was a tribute to the outsiders, outcasts and freaks he grew up with in Baltimore, those very people inhabiting his earlier films, notably his muse, the drag superstar Divine, Harris Glen Milstead, cast as Edna Turnblad, mother of the full figured Tracy Turnblad. The film was a love letter to the way song and dance could overcome racism, body-shaming and all the biases that had control of America in 1962. Hairspray, the musical, with tuneful and memorable songs by Marc Shaiman, stayed true to the politics, and kept memories of Divine alive by always casting Edna in drag, first with Harvey Fierstein and later John Travolta. Hairspray was the sweetest of all John Waters films, and that sweetness is reflected in the musical itself, and particularly in this production. It’s seen here in the superb performance of Ella Ruth Francis, who embodies Tracy with as much joy, energy and voice as any performer in the role on Broadway or off. She is Tracy Turnblad . Other standouts include Jordan Covington as Seaweed, whose body movement in every scene is a joy to behold. And there’s Jeanine Anderson as a gospel voiced Motormouth Maybelle and Alison Ewing as the amusingly villainous Velma Van Tussle. Jonathan Chisolm as Edna takes a backseat during most of the show, only stepping out in the final scenes. The casting of Edna may have once been a tribute to Divine, but today there’s a political subtext that enhances the show’s theme of inclusion. One caveat: the decibel level toward the end is a bit off the charts, so be forewarned. But mostly it’s just a grand night in the theatre, a musical to enjoy and savor. Hairspray, directed by Bill English, plays at San Francisco Playhouse through September 12th. For more information, you can go to sfplayhouse.org. I’m Richard Wolinsky on Bay Area theatre for KPFA.     The post Review: “Hairspray” at San Francisco Playhouse appeared first on KPFA.

  4. Jul 13

    Review: “The Employee Dharma Handbook” at TheatreWorks Palo Alto

    KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The Employee Dhama Handbook: a world premiere play by Geetha Reddy at TheatreWorks Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto through August 2, 2026.       TEXT OF REVIEW Discrimination comes at you in many ways. Racial bigotry. Religious fanaticism. Gender and disabled bias. Homophobia. Fat-shaming, agism. The list lengthens as you expand to other cultures. There’s the whole tribal thing too. Then there’s the caste system from India. Banned in 1950, it still lives on under the surface.Explaining caste in detail takes too long, but some jobs simply can’t go to members of one caste or another. The Brahmin are on top; Dalits at the bottom. But has the system spread to America, and if it has, how does it manifest? That question, and the relationship of that particular bias to the caste system of corporations lies at the heart of The Employee Dharma Handbook, a new play by Geetha Reddy, at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto through August 2nd. The focus is on a handful of workers at a fictional aerospace company; they’re building a rocket to Jupiter, and if it all works out, the whole crew will become rich. But Leela, a young Indian scientist born in the U.S., has just been passed over by her boss, Khrish, for an important promotion that instead went to another Indian, Baasu, who himself understands it should have gone to Leela. If this isn’t resolved, there is no team. Enter Val, the black HR director, no stranger to bias herself, investigating the matter. Was the problem Leela’s gender? Or something else? Khrish is Brahmin,. So is Baasu. Leela is not. No, no, says Khrish, it’s not like that at all. But maybe it is. The Employee Dharma Handbook often doesn’t know what kind of play it wants to be. Serious critique? Farce? Comedy-drama? The capitalism and caste dichotomy unclear. The comedy not as funny as it needs to be. 

As a world premiere it needs work. But the elements are there. Each character, at one point or other, becomes facilitator, accuser, victim, winner and loser. The cast handles the role switching well, particularly Kathryn Smith-McGlynn as Val and Kunal Dudhecker as Baasu. As the relationships twist and turn, we see a playwright at the top of her game.. There comes a point toward the end where The Employee Dharma Handbook goes off the rails, and in order to make a point, the characters become pawns of the playwright. Still, the play is often a thoughtful, funny, and very original ride with hopefully a bright future. The Employee Dharma Handbook by Geetha Reddy plays at TheatreWorks Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto, and for more information, you can go to theatre works.org. Im Richard Wolinsky on Bay Area theatre for KPFA.   The post Review: “The Employee Dharma Handbook” at TheatreWorks Palo Alto appeared first on KPFA.

  5. Jun 3

    Review: “The Lunchbox” at Berkeley Rep Roda Theatre

    KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The Lunchbox” at Berkeley Rep‘s Roda Theatre through July 5, 2026.             TEXT OF REVIEW The golden age of the Broadway musical died over a half century ago. The post-golden age of Sondheim and the rock opera faded before the new century. Since then, we’ve had corporate movie adaptations, jukebox junk and an increasing number of parody meta-musicals. But good and great shows do slip through the cracks. Hamilton, certainly, but also Fun Home, Next to Normal, Suffs and others. It’s quite possible that another gem eventually to hit New York, is currently at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre through July 5th, and that’s The Lunchbox, created by the team of Ritesh Batra and The Lazours.

Based on a 2013 film of the same name, The Lunchbox is about one of those one in a million chance meetings that change people and the direction of their lives. Mumbai, or Bombay as it was known, has a complex system in which business people’s hot lunches are delivered from home to workplace in the middle of the day via a phalanx of what are known as dabbawallahs. Despite millions of people and a gigantic metropolis, this system is incredibly accurate with spectacular on-time deliveries.

But there are screwups. One day, a young wife, Ila, sends her lunch canister to her husband’s office — the canisters have multiple smaller bowls — which never arrives. Somehow, it winds up on the desk of Sajaan, an older widower on the verge of retirement.He sends back a note. She responds. He’s decades older, she’s married with a daughter; romance may not be in the cards, but connection is. What makes The Lunch Box work so well is both its familiarity with musical theater tropes and its differences. You can hear a bit of Sondheim in the way music and lyrics meld to further the story, but there’s also the very distinctive sound of South Asian melody, harmony, instruments and rhythm, punctuated by Bollywood style ensemble dances. The result is organic, it feels right. The Lunchbox unites the two art forms into one, with the spectacle never overwhelming the delicacy of the story, songs, or performances, all of which, by the way, are very, very good, as is the gorgeous set design. The show is kind of a miracle, code-switching in a way that feels wholly original, while maintaining the sensibility and sensitivity of its source material. A note of caution: The Lunch Box is a soufflé. Any attempt to fix it, to make it more big ticket-friendly, could kill it. The show is perfect as it is. The Lunchbox plays at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre through July 5th. For more information you can to go berkeleyrep.org. I’m Richard Wolinsky on Bay Area theatre for KPFA. The post Review: “The Lunchbox” at Berkeley Rep Roda Theatre appeared first on KPFA.

  6. May 27

    Review: “Dracula, A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really” at San Francisco Playhouse

    KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Woinsky reviews “Dracula, A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really: by Kate Hamill at San Francisco Playhouse through June 27, 2026.           TEXT OF REVIEW According to Google’s unreliable AI, nobody beats Dracula as the single most portrayed literary character in film history, with over two hundred direct adaptations, parodies and crossover appearances. You can add the hundreds of theatrical versions floating around as well. Due to a screw-up in the 19th Century, Dracula has always been in the public domain in the United States. 

There’s also the whole vampire thing too, Vlad Tepes, Anne Rice, the Lost Boys. In 2020, following a flurry of Jane Austen adaptations, playwright Kate Hamill chose to take a bite out of Bram Stoker, and thus we have Dracula, A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really … yes, that’s the title, which now runs at San Francisco Playhouse through June 27th. This Dracula hews to the beats of the Stoker novel, and at the same time turns it upside down. Dracula is not merely a monster, he’s the archetype of toxic masculinity, particularly as muscularly and scarily performed by Johnny Moreno. Renfield, or rather Mrs. Renfield, the fly-eating comic lunatic, played here in an indelible performance by Stacy Ross, is the night’s most tragic victim, the rejected female child, yearning for daddy to take her back. After a brief prologue the show opens at the doors of Dracula’s castle in Transylvania, where estate agent Jonathan Harker, in a physical performance by James Aaron Oh that runs from torment to slapstick, meets up with the titular vampire, and his vampire wives, who are themselves victims of a misogynist society.

Then we move on to the main story involving Jonathan’s Wife Mina, an engaging Sharon Shao, and her friend Lucy, a feisty Nemma Adeni, she’s a proto-feminist planning to marry for security, certainly not love. And her fiancé, the staid anti-feminist Dr. Seward of the asylum, a deliberately stiff Josh Schell. And then we meet Dr. Van Helsing, in a cowboy hat, played with gusto by Susi Damilano, and all the elements fall in place. It’s to director Bill English’s credit that Dracula stays most of the time on a tightrope between Victorian melodrama, horror and camp. The laughter is uneasy, the pathos over the top, and the violence pretty graphic. This Dracula doesn’t shy away from its bloody roots. While the subject may be fear and the subtext dealing with the evils of traditional masculinity, this is a fearless production with an impeccable cast. If you don’t mind the viscera. Dracula, A Feminist Revenge Fantasy Really by Kate Hamill plays at San Francisco Playhouse through June 27th. For more information, you can go to sfplayhouse.org. I’m Richard Wolinsky on Bay Area theatre for KPFA. The post Review: “Dracula, A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really” at San Francisco Playhouse appeared first on KPFA.

  7. May 24

    Review: “Pictures from Home’ at Marin Theatre

    KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Pictures from Home” at Marin Theatre through May 31, 2026           TEXT OF REVIEW Acclaimed photographer Larry Sultan based his career on capturing life as lived through his art, and what better notion than collating photos of his own family and home growing up in Sherman Oaks in Southern California during the middle of the twentieth century. This collection of snapshots became a book published in 1992, which was then adapted for the stage as “Pictures from Home”, which plays at Marin Theatre through May 31st. In this memory play, Larry, who died in 2009, tells the story of his visits to his parents while preparing the book, as the three, parents and son, comment on the pictures and bicker with one another. Irving Sultan, a retired salesman, is no Willy Loman. He sold well and retired well-off, always ready to explain exactly what makes a great salesman, often to Larry’s chagrin. Jean Sultan, ever acerbic, puts up with her husband’s toxic masculinity, refusing to take his bullying and having a life of her own. Always seemingly on the verge of divorce, they will stay together until the end. What makes Pictures from Home work so well in this Marin Theatre production — the show began off broadway with in 2023 with a cast that included Nathan Lane — is the truthfulness, in the dialogue, in all three performances, and in the direction of Jonathan Moscone. There’s no heightened speech, no pregnant theatrical pauses. These are real people sounding like a family, dysfunctional maybe, but real. The performances by Victor Talmadge as Irving and Susan Koozin as Jean are so truthful that even if they’re not your actual parents or grandparents, they still sound like them in their sparring and quarrelling. Dan Cantor, as the narrator and son, physically a dead ringer for the real Larry, pulls off his double duties without a hitch. Pictures from Home can at times be painful to watch. These people are maybe too real for comfort. Do you really want to spend an evening with relatives like these, didn’t you move as far away from them as possible? Our memories create golden ages where such squabbles and power plays don’t exist. Which is why Larry Sultan’s photos have such resonance. His photos were more credible than the memories he retained, which is why his books and exhibitions work so well. This play mirrors that credibility. With truthfulness in short supply these days in social media and in news reports, finding it in a memory play is all the more special. Pictures from Home by Sharr White, directed by Jonathan Moscone, plays at Marin Theatre through May 31st. For more information you can go to marintheatre.org. I’m Richard Wolinsky on Bay Area theatre for KPFA. The post Review: “Pictures from Home’ at Marin Theatre appeared first on KPFA.

  8. May 13

    Review: “Alicia Keys’ Hells Kitchen” at the Orpheum in San Francisco

    KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews the national touring company production of  “Hell’s Kitchen” at the Orpheum Theater in San Francisco.           FULL TEXT: Following the release of her debut album in 2001, Songs in A Minor, singer songwriter Alicia Keys became an instant superstar, a position firmed up by a series of successful albums and Grammy Awards over the course of the next decade. So it is not surprising that a jukebox musical would at some point emerge. And thus we have Hells Kitchen, which runs at the Orpheum Theatre through May 24th. Most jukebox shows fall into two categories: a history of the performer’s career, with the songbook performed in the order the songs were recorded, with occasional numbers shoehorned into the story, or an original story retconned to make the songs fit the plot. Hells Kitchen presents new songs and shoehorned ones in a sanitized autobiography. The show focuses on Alicia Keys’ life at the age of seventeen, as she and her single mom reside in a high-rise inthe gentrifying neighborhood west of Times Square. She fights with her mom over an older boy and winds up learning piano from an elderly woman living in the building’s public room. The low stakes — who didn’t fight with their parents at that age? means there’s minimal forward movement. Despite the piano lessons, we never learn of Ali’s talent, nor her ambitions. The songs themselves, well it’s hard to follow lyrics distorted by melisma and drowned out by orchestration. The reconstructed old songs are unrecognizable, and the new ones have no center. Many songs start small and turn into a cacophany, with random dancers performing aerobics disguised as choreography. This may work at a Demi Lovato concert, or a Warriors Halftime Show, but doesn’t quite fly inside a stage musical. There are pleasures, most notably in the work of Kennedy Caughell as Jersey, Ali’s mother, Desmond Sean Elliott as Davis, Ali’s dad, and most notably, Roz White as Miss Liza Jane, the pianist who teaches Ali how to be a musician. And while Alicia Keys isn’t there to perform them, her songs all work within her own specific musical ballpark. It’s Alicia Keys without Alicia Keys, one supposes. Ultimately, none of the complaints matter. The show ran two years on Broadway, over 750 performances. Costing 22 million dollars to produce, the show made back only 60% of its capitalization. This tour is an attempt to make up the difference, and judging by the ovation opening night at the Orpheum, it just might. Hells Kitchen runs at the Orpheum through May 24th. For more information, go to atgtickets.com. I’m Richard Wolinsky on Bay Area theatre for KPFA. The post Review: “Alicia Keys’ Hells Kitchen” at the Orpheum in San Francisco appeared first on KPFA.

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Bay Area theatre reviews with KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky,.Older posts include theatre interviews recorded pre-pandemic. LINK TO ASSORTED LOCAL THEATER & BOOK VENUES

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  • Creator
    KPFA
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2026
  • Episodes
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    © 2026KPFA 312700
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